GOOD CITY FORM

- Kevin Lynch
AUTHOR
Kevin Andrew Lynch
• Born in the 20th century
• Educated in Yale University, Rensseleaer Polytechnic
Institute and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Gained professorship in MIT in the year 1963
• Eventually earned professor emeritus status from same
• Consulted to the state of Rhode island, new England
medical Centre, Boston redevelopment authority, Puerto
Rico industrial development corp., MIT planning office,
and other organizations.
Kevin Andrew Lynch was an American urban planner and
author. His most influential books include The Image of the
City (1960) What Time is This Place? (1972) and Good City
Form (1981).

Lynch consulted for many cities in the United States and abroad on projects including Boston's
Government Center and Waterfront Park, Detroit's Riverfront, major art institutions in Dallas, and
urban design plans in Minneapolis, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and San Diego.

Lynch provided seminal contributions to the field of city planning through empirical research on how
individuals perceive and navigate the urban landscape. His books explore the presence of time and
history in the urban environment, how urban environments affect children, and how to harness human
perception of the physical form of cities and regions as the conceptual basis for good urban design.
GOOD CITY FROM

Context of the book

The spatial city is made up of things and activities.

Whether the form of that city really makes any difference
and how we can analyze such differences.

Many people would say that this is impossible to answer.

For one thing, they would assert that the things around us
are not what matter, but rather our relations to other
people.

These are the key to our happiness and our welfare. But
that both act together, that our relations to each other as
human beings are also influenced by the physical
environment. In that sense the physical environment is
indeed critical to our welfare.

Another general criticism may be made to raising this

question. When one tries to generalize and to speak for
everyone, then one speaks nonsense, since one cannot
generalize across cultures.

What makes a good city depends on who you are and what
your interests are. It is impossible to cross all these lines.
GOOD CITY FROM

In this book initially he examine three existing normative theories, those which see the
city as a model of the cosmos, as a machine, and as a living organism.

The aim of these theories is simply to describe how settlements work rather than to
evaluate how they ought to work.

These theories are models of cities as ecological systems, as fields of force, as systems
of linked decisions, or as areas of class conflict.

Lynch puts his own theory of good city form, which can produce good settlements,
qualities that allow "development, within continuity, via openness and connection."

He presented five dimensions of performance vitality, sense, fit, access, and control.

Review of the book

Lynch looks at connections between human values and the physical forms of cities,
sets requirements for a normative theory of city form, reviews earlier physical images of
what utopian communities might be, sees what is to be learned from hellish images, and
helps us place city forms into one or another of three theoretic constructs: cosmic or
ceremonial centers, the machine city, and the city as an organism.
STRUCTURE OF THE BOOK

PART I VALUES AND CITIES

1. Form Values in Urban History
2. What is the Form of a City, and How is it Made?
3. Between Heaven and Hell
4. Three Normative Theories
5. But is a General Normative Theory Possible?

PART II A THEORY OF GOOD CITY FORM

6. Dimensions of Performance
7. Vitality
8. Sense
9. Fit
10. Access
11. Control
12. Efficiency and Justice

PART III SOME APPLICATIONS

13. City Size and the Idea of Neighborhood
14. Growth and Conservation
15. Urban Textures and Network
16. City Models and City Design
17. A place Utopia
PART I VALUES AND CITIES
Form Values in Urban History
The modification of the settlement is a human act, however
complex, accomplished for human motives, however obscure or
effective.

What is the Form of a City, and How is it Made?

Three branches of theory endeavour to explain the city as a
spatial phenomenon.
Planning Theory/Decision Theory
Functional Theory
Normative Theory

Between Heaven and Hell

We can divide most official proposals into two groups, one at a
national or large regional scale, other at a local scale. Also
spaces can also be studied on basis of strong values, wishful
values, weak values, hidden values, neglected values.

Three Normative Theories

Cities based on cosmic theories.
Cities as machines
Cities as living things

But is a General Normative Theory Possible?

There is dogma and there is opinion. But there is no systematic
effort to state general relationships between the form of a
place and its value.
PART II A THEORY OF GOOD CITY FORM
Vitality
• Sustenance- availability of all the elements to sustain the life.
• Safety- it considers psychological safety, social safety and
physical safety.
• Consonance- the environment should consonance with the
basic biological structure of human being.
Sense
• Identity- it is the extent to which person can recognige or
recall a place as being distinct from other places, having
unique character of its own.
• Structure- which at the scale of small place is the sense of
how it parts fit together an in large settlement is the sense of
orientation.
• Congruence- identification/ recognization of the place by
form of city or building.Transparency- one can directly
perceive the operations of the various technical functions,
activities, and social & natural processes that are occurring
within the settlement.

Fit
It is the match between place and whole patterns of behaviour .
it is linked to characteristics of the human body and of physical
system in general. Adaptability, manipulability, reversibility
excess capacity, improving accessibility, separation of parts,
modular and standardization, reduction of recycling costs are the
characteristics of fit.
PART II A THEORY OF GOOD CITY FORM
Access
It is the extent to which goods, services, place and information
are accessible with minimum time and efforts. (least path of
resistance) It is classified as access to other people, access to
human activities, access to services, access to material
resources, access to natural environment, access to information.

Control
It refers to the pervasive phenomena of territorial occupation of
space and time for discharging day to day activities. It depends
upon ownership. There are some spatial right like right of
presence, right to be in place, right of use and action, rights of
modification, right of disposition. Following aspects are comes
under Control.

Congruence
The extent to which the actual user or inhabitants of a space
control it in proportion to the degree of their Permanente stake
in it. User congruence allows for better fit and greater security,
satisfaction and freedom as a consequence of it.

Responsibility
It is a balancing criteria and supposes that those who control a
place should have motives, information and power to do it well.

Certainty
The degree to which people understand the control system, can
predict its scope, and feel secure with it.
PART III SOME APPLICATIONS

City Size and the Idea of Neighborhood

Controlling the city size, optimum systems of sizes,
thresholds, size of commuting regions, size of political units,
neighborhood conditions, Local control.

Growth and Conservation

Freedom of movement and zero growth, optimum rate of
change, conservation of nature, city as part of nature, image
of time (historic).

Urban Textures and Network

The internal texture of a settlement is probably more
important to its quality than many map patterns.
Implications of density, pathology of crowding, carrying
capacity, grain – form, activity, timing, transportation.

City Models and City Design

Specifying form or performance, Models versus standards,
form and process, Its advantages and disadvantages,
models as possibilities, city design, its proper nature.

A place Utopia
An urban countryside, its development, land management,
right to place, rent and allocation, character and mix, social
mix, urban centres, mobility.
CONCLUSION

Good city form should be:

Vital (sustained, safe and consonant)

Sensible (identifiable, structured, congruent, transparent, legible, unfolding and

significant)

Well fitted (manupulable, and resilient)

Accessible (diverse, equitable and locally manageable)

Well Controlled (congruent, certain, responsible and intermittently loose)

And all of these are achieved with Justice and Internal Efficiency.
Image Of The City
- Kevin Lynch
Intent

What does the city's form actually mean to the people who live there?

What can the city planner do to make the city's image more vivid and memorable to the city dweller?

• Lynch supported the justification by studies of Los Angeles, Boston, and Jersey City, formulates a new
criterion-imageability--and shows its potential value as a guide for the building and rebuilding of cities.

• The wide scope of this study leads to an original and vital method for the evaluation of city form.

• Kevin Lynch’s book, The Image of the City, is a detailed study of the way we structure our cities
psychologically. For Lynch, the “imageability” of a city is directly related to the success of its urban plan.
Lynch argues that the ease in which one can recognize the patterns and meanings of their environment,
the more pleasure and utility they will extract from it.

Structure of the book

• In the first section, new concepts of legibility and Imageability are presented to lay the theoretical
foundation of the entire book.

• Followed by that, Lynch introduced three American cities as examples to reveal his outcomes of field
reconnaissance, and then made comparisons between each other.

• In the third section, five elements and their interrelationships are summarized from previous
researches which act as the core content of the book.
What Does The City's Form Actually Mean To The People Who Live There?

• A city is constructed in space, but of a vast scale.

• A city is described with it’s surroundings and elements.

• Explains that people’s perception of the city is important.

• Going through a city from the viewers mind is “image of the city”.

• Elements like nodes, paths, districts, edges, landmarks make a city.

• To make a visual plan (map).

• Analysing the forms and public areas.

• Understand problems, opportunities and use them in designing a city.

Concept Of Legibility

• It is said to be the ease with which people understand the layout of a place.

• To understand the layout of the city, people make a mental map, which contains mental images of
the city constrains. ( varies from every individual)

• It means the ease with which its parts can be recognized and can be organized into a coherent
pattern.
Concept Of Imagibility

• Another term introduced by Lynch, is the quality of physical object, which gives a
observer a strong vivid image.

• High imageable city would be well formed, would contain distinct paths.

• They should be instantly recognizable.

• Well formed city is highly dependent upon the elements because, that would make the
viewers their city imageable.

• Remembering your city on images is meaningful.

• E.g: Well designed paths include special lighting, clarity of direction, etc.
Concept Of Imageability

• Another term introduced by Lynch, is the quality of physical object, which gives a
observer a strong vivid image.

• High imageable city would be well formed, would contain distinct paths.

• They should be instantly recognizable.

• Well formed city is highly dependent upon the elements because, that would make the
viewers their city imageable.

• Remembering your city on images is meaningful.

• E.g: Well designed paths include special lighting, clarity of direction, etc.
Concept Of Imageability

Kevin Lynch found that there are five basic elements which
people use to construct their mental image of a city:
• Pathways
Paths are the channels along which the observer moves. They may
be streets, walkways, transit lines, canals, railroads.

• Edges
Edges are the linear elements not used as paths by the observer.
They are the boundaries and linear breaks in continuity: shores,
railroad cuts, edges of development, walls.

• Districts
Districts are the medium-to-large sections of the city which
the observer mentally enters "inside of," and which are
recognizable as having some common, identifying character.

• Nodes
Nodes are points, the strategic spots in a city into which an
observer can enter, and which are the intensive foci to and from
which he is traveling. They may be primarily junctions or
concentrations.
• Landmarks
Landmarks are another type of point-reference, but in this case
the observer does not enter within them, they are external. They
are usually a rather simply defined physical object: building, sign,
store, or mountain.
CREATING A MENTAL MAP
A person's perception of the world is known as
a mental map.
• A mental map is an individual's own map of
their known world.

• Mental maps of individuals can be

investigated .

• By asking for directions to a landmark or

other location.

• By asking someone to draw a sketch map of

an area or describe that area.

• By asking a person to name as many places

as possible in a short period of time.

MENTAL MAPS CAN BE EVALUATED BY:

• This can be evaluated in terms of identity,
what makes this particular image unique
among cities, structure.
• How the image is spatially formed and
meaning.
• What values are attached to the image
Public Image
Each individual holds a unique image of his or her city,
a visual representation that guides through daily life
and maps out meaning.
Researching a sample of these images can help
planners describe a “public image” of their city.

HOW TO MAKE PUBLIC IMAGE?

The public image of cities was created in two ways:

1. By interviewing several citizens of cities

• Verbal Interview
• Making a quick sketch map

2. By Field study on foot by trained observer

Images gained from the public imageability are used

to create a “public image” of the city i.e. the people‟s
view of city.
These depend upon the elements of the city
• Interviewed images • Field survey